Deviations in Heartbreak
by LegalBlonde
Summary: COMPLETE. Three versions of reality, each beginning in a Hong Kong alley. SV. Post-Telling.
1. Prologue

Author: LegalBlonde

Email: legalblonde2005@yahoo.com

Classification: S/V angst.

Spoilers: Through "The Telling"

Distribution: CM; anyone else drop me a line so I can visit. 

Disclaimer:  Alias, et al belongs to JJ Abrams and others with money.  I have no Alias, no et al, and no money.  Don't sue.  

Thanks:  To carrielynn, my tireless beta, whose encouragement, insight and criticism helped mold this story.

Summary:  Three realities, different yet not wholly separate, beginning in a Hong Kong alleyway.  (Subtitle: If JJ can copy _Run, Lola, Run_, so can I.)

AN:  Yes, there are three versions of reality in the fic.  Each one is marked as a separate "deviation".  It's an odd structure, but it comes together in the end.

Prologue (deviation one)

_2005, june_

_"Syd... since that night... you were missing. You've been missing for almost two years."_

She tries to blot out the words with the rough cotton of a cheap pillowcase, tries to bury the images in the exposed springs of a bare safehouse mattress.  She shakes her head, wet hair flinging across her cheek, and rubs her eyes with callused fingers.  But the words remain.  

The images remain.  

He promised to explain to her tomorrow -- tomorrow, he said, sitting awkwardly on the corner of his chair, hands on his knees, not meeting her eyes.  Tomorrow.

"Sydney, you need to get some rest.  Get checked out by a doctor.  In the morning we can start to put all this together."

Together?  No, nothing's coming together.  It's nothing more than a cheap ploy to make her (him?) feel better about everything coming apart.  

She's not sleeping this way.  She pushes herself off the flimsy, dusty mattress on the floor of the safehouse, kicking back the scratchy wool blanket.  She stands up, hand swinging in midair, grasping for the pull-chain connected to the bare bulb overhead.  The yellow-toned light fills half the room, leaving the corners in shadow.  She finds her boots against one wall, pants and turtleneck folded beside them.  

The worst thing a person can do is nothing at all.  

She uses her fingers to pry the tiny window open, pushing hard against the years of dust and corrosion.  She finally gets it halfway, just enough to slither through, one leg, then torso, then her other leg.  Hanging from the narrow sill, she hovers just four feet from the ground.  She drops, swinging to one side, bracing herself for the pain that shoots through her ankles.  She crouches for a moment, one hand on the ground, letting her joints recover.  Then she begins moving, quickly, darting into shadows and out of alleys, keeping out of the omnipresent electricity and the surreal glow of every-color neon lights.  

She needs only an hour to retrace her steps, winding back to the alley.  Once there, she stops, catching her breath, heart pounding, eyes sweeping the place where everything began to fall apart.  The images from her nightmares flood back to her with clarity.  Her body jerks, her spine stiffens.  She knows why she's come.  

A glint of light catches her eye, and somehow that doesn't surprise her.  She kneels down (ignoring the smell), pushing soggy newspapers aside to reveal a small silver knife.  The ornate handle is filled with flowing script, and carved on the matching sheath is the eerily familiar symbol of an eye.  

She's long past logic, past reason, past even emotion by this point.  Her world has been reduced to three facts: this knife is here, it is here for her, and this reality somehow seems like no reality at all.  She knows if she is to do anything, to have any hope, she will close her eyes, hold her breath, and do what her mind screams at her to stop.  

Her heart pounds, but her hands do not shake, as the slides the knife from its sheath and slowly, carefully, draws the blade across the scar on her side.


	2. 2003, summer

_Body (deviation two)_

_2003, Summer_

_june_

She drags her eyes open and blinks in the green-tinged light.  Her cheek is against something uneven, and slightly sticky; it smells of nicotine and corn syrup and blood.  She blinks, trying to make sense of the shapes above her -- dim green light pouring through a window just above her head.  She is cramped, enclosed -- her knees up to her waist, a soft barrier against her back and another just in front of her.  She moves, and the pain forces her to squint her eyes shut and draw her knees up even further.  It radiates from her chest, deep inside, and spreads through her whole fire-wracked midsection; the menstrual cramp from hell.  She pulls in a breath, harsh, ragged, desperate.

_thinkthinkthinkSydneythink_

She opens her eyes and does not move.  The soft barriers, the smell, the rough sticky plastic against her cheek -- car.  Car.  Small car.  Floorboard, backseat.  She twists her head and lifts it, trying not to move her burning torso.  Her head throbs, her vision clouds, she squeezes her eyes shut and waits for the dizziness to pass.  She opens them again, her vision clear.  The light floods in from the window above her; when she cranes her neck just a bit she can catch the edge of something bright, glowing green -- neon, perhaps?

Next task.  She shuts her eyes tight, ignores the overwhelming pain, and works on sliding herself up onto the seat above her.  She moves slowly, inch by agonizing inch, slowing but never stopping, never giving in.  When she can relax her weight onto the seat, she breathes in deep gasps, eyes shutting out the light, and when she opens them again she does not know if time has passed.  She can see now, letters refracting through the window above her, an upside down inscription lighting the sky with ghostly green.  

Two ghastly green palm trees flash, jerking back and forth in a crude, spastic reconstruction of a breeze.  Just below them, in warm yellow letters: VA  A  CY.  And above it, glowing green: 

_Santa Barbara Motor-Inn_

**********


	3. 2003, fall

**********

_Fall_

_september_

Ironic, that a motel parking lot would be the start of her new life.  Seedy motels aren't so different, the world over.  There's the curious stain on the ceiling, the yellow grunge lining the shower or tub, the strange line of black dusty something you have to swish away before you use the sink.  And the water.  The trick is to remember whether you can use the water.  

In Taipei, it comes out orange.  The faucet sputters and gurgles and spits out rust-colored water in sudden short bursts.  She turns off the faucet.  Perhaps not.  

She sits on the edge of the low bed, the rough knit blanket scratching her bare legs.  She forces herself to do this, to see herself, to monitor.  She strips off all her clothes and tosses them in a heap in the corner.  She stands before the mirror (when there is one) and looks, head to toe.  She notes the leanness of her arms, the definition of her shins, the curve of her legs.  She does not look, she studies -- the amount of muscle mass, the weight, the way her arms fall and her legs stride.  She notes the marks that crisscross her arms, faded now, and the faint line tracing up her neck.  She turns her head to catch sight of the uneven spot on her left temple, and she looks last at the scars on her torso.  Always the scars.  The long one traces between her breasts, stopping just below her ribs.  The short one, thicker, crosses just below it and to one side.  The color has faded a bit, she decides, but the tissue still puffs far above the even surface of her stomach.  

She pulled out the stitches in Berlin, her only tools a pair of needle-nosed tweezers and a straightedge blade.  She remembers the burning, the way the edges of the dark, rough thread stuck like barbed wire as she pulled them through the newly healed skin.  She taped it up with black electrical tape -- all she could find -- and tore her cotton shirt into strips to soak up the excess blood.  

She puts her clothes back on, the loose-fitting ones, and drags the scratchy blanket off the bed for use as a makeshift mat.  Push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, scissors.  She will push her body until it aches, then really begin.  She moves slowly on the stomach exercises, the muscles still too atrophied for the real work.  She works carefully, her heart pounding early on, reminding her how long it's been. She will push and move and sweat until exhaustion sets in, then lower her body back to the mat, to relax.  She will push again, again -- until sleep threatens to overtake her and she catches herself dozing off, eyes sliding shut on the mat, not able to wait to make it to the bed.

Her release, her protection, her sanity: force herself into exhaustion, so she will not have to think after she lies down in bed.  If it catches her, if it wins, this mysterious, dark force preying on her consciousness, it will because she gave in, because she let it have room to work.  Insanity works like that, she decides.  Like paper catching fire, the flames lick around the edges, curling them up and in, until the whole page turns to flame, blazes up, and is gone.  It is like that, for her -- the images and flashes and impressions and sounds crowd just around the edges of reality, just around the edges of sleep.  She doesn't dare chase after them, analyze them, try to remember and relive the white-hot flashes of pain and dim colors of memory at the edges of her mind.  No, if she loses her sanity, it will go just that way.  And she cannot let that happen.

******

_october_

_Vaughn_

He lives and breathes in abandoned warehouses and dark alleys.  Scraps of intel, shadows around corners, hints of dreams.

_She's running.  She must be.  She has every reason to run._

_She's afraid to come back.  Afraid he'll find her.  Afraid he'll take whatever -- whoever -- she has left._

_She doesn't want him to know where she is.  That's it.  It must be._

_She's lost too much.  She can't stand to lose any more._

_She's planning something.  She's planning._

That's it.  It must be.  Every day, every minute, he's reminding himself how much it makes sense. 

He doesn't listen to the other arguments, the dread, the ideas that crowd at edge of his mind.  They're strongest when he drops off to sleep at night, sometimes here at his desk, sometimes at home, slumped over a growing stack of manila files on the dining table.  Occasionally, the couch.  He avoids the bed.  It's there, the other thoughts are strongest -- the hints, the suggestions, the fears, the barrage flooding into his head. 

_Sheisdeadsheisgonesheishurthekilledherkilledthatmustbeithekilledherkilledherkilledher_

Another report comes in.  A blue folder, this time.  A crime scene, strange implements, a hunk of DNA.  A heart, someone said.  Or at least a large piece of one.  He closes the file, and closes his eyes, the sharp cardboard edge denting his forehead.  

_Pleasepleasedon'tletitbeherDNAplease_

The tests results come back, two interminable days later.  He stares at the numbers, the strange geometric designs, the name.  He flips the folder shut, and opens it again.  He misread; he had to.  When he opens it up again it will be different; he will be wrong. Nothing more than a nightmare, a hallucination born of too many dreams.  He flips the folder open again.

BRISTOW, Sydney A.

_NotadreamnotadreamnotanightmarepleaseyesanightmarepleaseGodnonoSydneyno_

A person can't live without a heart.  He would know.

*******

_november_

When was it that life fell apart?  The day she discovered Francie?  The day she learned the truth about her mother?  The day Danny died?  The day a strange man approached her, sophomore year?  

She numbers them, counts her new life by the days.  347.  1286.  124.  On one of them, everything fell apart, and this thing she calls reality slipped from her grasp, letting the nightmares take its place. 

Yet some parts were not nightmares.  She remembers soft touches on her skin, the feel of a blue oxford on her cheek; she thinks she could tell it was the blue one without ever opening her eyes.  She walked through a fragrance counter one time, on a cold day in Boston.  She needed a place to get out of the weather, needed a crowd to hide.  She pushed through the doors with a throng of holiday shoppers, tired children and stuffed shopping bags bumping against her shins.  She followed the pulsing crowd, letting them carry her along as they hurried in and fanned out and rushed to a hundred different locations.  She realized they had carried her to men's fragrance and by that time it was too late.  The smell caught her by surprise, and before she could stop herself, make herself think, she was standing over the glass counter staring down at rows of identical black boxes with embossed gold edges.  She ran her fingers over the glass and told herself she would go away -- 

_leavegoleavenowjustleave_

-- and told herself she would stay.  Her hand found its way down to her pocket and ran over the edges of the neatly-folded bills.  She had just enough, she could afford a small bottle -- she wouldn't do anything rash, it wouldn't incriminate her, she would just drizzle a few drops over her pillow at night and perhaps as she was drifting off to sleep she could imagine he was there, that the soft form at her back was his arm and not the rigid motel-room pillow.  She could drift off to sleep and perhaps, with it, she could dream, not the nightmares she tries to forget but the blurry, faded images she tries to remember.  

"Ma'am, are you interested in anything?"  The voice was hard, annoyed.  Sydney looked up, realizing she had heard the question three times.  She had to think, to decide.  She ran her thumb over the bills and pulled her hand out of her pocket, empty. 

"No, no."

"You sure?"

"No, I mean, yes."  She shook her head and stepped away from the counter, bumping into a cardboard display.  The saleswoman didn't notice, nobody noticed, no one cares about one cheap woman in the holiday throng.  She caught sight of a black bowl on the end of the counter, full of narrow cream-colored cardstock sticks with gold edging.  She walked away, her pace matching the rest of the hurried crowd, and without glancing over she reached out, grasped a handful of the samples, and shoved them into her coat pocket.  She detected the scent minutes later, when she stepped out the overheated entryway back onto the salt-covered sidewalk.  The faintest whiff met her, rising from her pockets, permeating the thick wool of her coat.  She stopped on the sidewalk, waiting with a crowd for the blinking white "walk" sign.  She stood still, felt the cold air passing through her skin, sinking into her bones, and she drew breath after deep breath, hoping to be rewarded with another whiff.  She was.  For the first time that month, she smiled.


	4. 2003, 2004, winter

*******

_december_

She buys a Christmas card and a pint of ice cream.  Not coffee-flavored, though.

She cannot send the card; she knows it.  She will hold it in her hands and run her fingers over the surface and pretend she can send it somewhere.  She could send it blank, address it to Will or to her father or Vaughn.  She could address it to Francie, just to see where it goes.  She could drop it off on a mailbox on her way out of town, in an airport on her way out of the country.  It would have nothing but her scent and her fingerprints and her precise lettering on the envelope.  

She closes her eyes and taps the card against her head, the sharp cardboard edges denting her forehead.  She cannot risk it; she knows.  She stands up off the bed, unfolding her legs.  She crosses to the dusty black television set and props the card up on top, like the displayed well-wishes of a close friend.  

When her mother died (at least she thought so) it was just before the holidays, just before Thanksgiving (she's always hated November) and she remembers the neat stack of Christmas cards, half signed in her mother's neat script, waiting to be addressed and stamped and placed into envelopes.  She remembers drawing her favorites out of the stack, the ones with neat lettering and personal messages in a dark green pen.  She propped them up on the shelf in her bedroom, in front of the droopy ragdolls and the prim plastic Barbies.  She set them up there, like her mother always did, with the nice cards lined up across the mantel, like they'd been sent out, full of well-wishes and cheer and the glowing warm illusion that nothing was wrong.

_******_

_2004, january_

The idea comes to her in a museum in Assisi, down a narrow hall and into a drafty room where they hung the works not important enough to display in the brightly lit galleries in the entry.  The room feels right, cool and damp and quiet, hidden away from the prying eyes of tourists.  She wanders around the room just as she wandered into the museum, seeking someplace out of the revealing sun, away from the crowds with their jostling, boisterous busyness and into someplace quiet, and warm, someplace where she could map out the exits and size up the visitors and always keep one eye on the situation around her.  She looks at the high, narrow window, set deeply into the aging walls of pink stone.  Wide enough to crawl out, only after some struggling and the dangers of jagged glass.  She shudders involuntarily, but does not delve into the reasons glass shards disturb her.  

The works hang on walls, jumbled together too closely in cheap frames.  A few others sit on pedestals, the cheap sheet metal and green felt displays the only thing out of place in the ancient building.  Weathered pages, yellow and curling, sit atop the odd displays underneath glass covers clearly built for much smaller pedestals.  The room alternates between ornate works by unknown artists and quick scribblings by minor ones.  She is perusing the longest of the glass displays, containing pages from some book she's never head of, when she sees it.  Her breath catches for a moment, and her fingers grip the glass (forgetting about the prints) as she tries to comprehend what she is seeing, and why it looks so familiar.  There is no name on the yellowed page, only ancient Latin script annotating an odd-looking diagram.  The style is familiar, but more so the faint marking on the page, noticeable only to the practiced eye, appearing like a watermark behind the text.  An eye.

She steps back, drawing a breath.  Up to now, she has followed no agenda or plan, only the undeniable instinct to move, to run, to keep one step ahead of the dark shadow that follows her and anyone real who might trail behind it.  Anything to escape the string of deaths that marked her old life.  But here, staring at the page, the beginning of a plan forms in her consciousness, the contours of it appearing like a memory, or the lyrics of a half-forgotten song.  She looks around her, taking in the scene.  No cameras, no security of any kind.  Only the room and the long, narrow passageway that separates her from the bored tourists in the main galleries.  She listens, hearing no one, and slowly lifts the glass cover from the table.  The movement creates a small puff of air across the ancient pages, causing them to rock back and forth, curled edges rising in the air.  She lifts the last page, so delicate it seems it might dissolve in her hands.  She doesn't risk folding it, but lifts her sweater and tucks it into her waistband, smoothing the page against her skin, adjusting her bra so the top edge of the page is just trapped beneath the underwire.  She lowers her sweater and unwinds the broad scarf she uses to obscure her face and cover her hair.  She wipes the glass cover down methodically, inside first, and places it over the pedestal, moving slowly so as not to stir the pages beneath.  She touches only the outside of the glass this time, then wipes it down, leaving nothing but greasy smudges where her fingerprints, and those of others, had been.  

Moving quickly, but not too quickly, she makes her way down the narrow passage, and mingles for a moment in the gallery beyond.  The crowd has thinned now; with the coming of twilight no one enters here to avoid the crowds, and this is not the kind of place anyone goes out of their way to see.  The decrepit man at the door smiles at her as she exits, the way he does with all the American girls, and she inclines her head toward him as she leaves.  It's probably the easiest security pass she's ever made.  

She hurries trough the streets and narrow alleys, moving as quickly as she can without drawing attention, and when she reaches the hotel she nearly drops the key.  She sags against the door after she's safely inside, but allows herself only that moment.  She crosses to the bed, raising her sweater and carefully disengaging the page from its resting place.  Bits of the edges break off in the process, sticking to her pants and her bra and leaving behind the feeling of grimy dirt against sweaty skin.  She searches the room for anything she can use, looking in every pouch of her backpack and through the all drawers, hoping for something left behind.  Sighing, she leaves the room, checking the door twice to make certain it's locked.  

Across the street and down an alley, she comes out into a busier area and a souvenir shop, narrow shelves crammed with cheap replicas of David and gondolas and the leaning tower and every other famous sight in the country.  Behind the glass checkout counter she sees an assortment of necessities hanging on metal hooks, and there she finds what she needs.  She asks for it in unaccented Italian, disappointing the shopkeeper, so eager to flirt with the American girl.  She passes him a bill and lets him keep the change, hurrying back to the hotel with her hand in her pocket, fingers curled around her treasure.  

She locks the door, once inside, and checks it twice.  She slides one arm under the page, supporting it with her other hand, using two hands to lift it from the bed like a baby.  She carries it into the bathroom, kneeling on the bare tile with drain that serves as a shower.  She balances the page on one arm, the other fishing in her pocket for her purchase -- a pink plastic bic lighter.  She touches the flame to the ancient page, holding it to one corner, then another.  The paper catches fire, the flames licking around the edges, curling them up and in, until the whole page turns to flame, blazes up, and is gone.

She holds onto it until the last possible second, feeling the heat sink into her skin, smelling the stench of her singed arm hairs.  She drops the charred mess onto the tile, dissolving to ashes.  She strips, shaking out her sweater, her bra, her pants, determined to rid them of the last traces of the crumbling paper.  When she is done, she turns on the water overhead, letting it wash over her, her clothes, the tile.  She watches the last specks of black dust wash away down the drain.   

*******

_february_

She should feel better.  She should improve.  She has, physically.  She studies herself in a mirror in Buenos Aires, the first full-length she's had in weeks.  She leaves the curtains drawn, but the windows cracked open, letting in the warm summer air.  (Sometimes travel has its advantages.)  She pulls the loose blouse over her head and steps out of her skirt, folding them carefully and placing them on the bed.  She steps toward the mirror, close enough to scrutinize, close enough to study.  Her arms aren't so lean, her cheeks no longer sunken.  She can see definition returning to her calves; by now she's much further into her workout before her heart begins to pound.

She has a mission now, a purpose -- no longer survival and instinct, but planning and care.  Retribution.  Success.  Freedom.  The words ring hollow in her ears.

She's improved.  She has.  She just has to keep reminding herself of that.  


	5. 2004, spring

*******

_Spring_

_march_

_Vaughn_

Jack is waiting for him, ready when he arrives.  His head is bent over the desk, politely studying files until Vaughn chooses to make his presence known. He pauses for a moment (unusual for him) watching the older man.  His hair, once the color of steel, has faded to the shade of weathered marble.  The set line of his lips is more pronounced; the small creases deeper beside his eyes.  His shoulders aren't as straight as they used to be.  

"Agent Vaughn?"  His voice is no less sharp, his demeanor no less professional.  And he is tired of waiting.

"Director Bristow, I'm here to tender my resignation."

"Very well.  Leave it in my inbox."

Vaughn places the singe sheet in the overfull box, straightens up, and freezes, uncertain what to do.

"You may go, Agent Vaughn."

Vaughn opens his mouth, but thinks better of it, and turns to go.  He crosses the small room and reaches for the doorknob.

"You believe this is the best decision?"  There it is.  

Vaughn turns around; Jack does not meet his eyes, keeping them trained on the letter he's now holding in his hand.

"I don't feel I have anything more to contribute to the CIA."

"My daughter might think differently."  Vaughn tries to control his reaction, but squeezes his eyes shut in the throb of pain.

"Sydney..."  He manages her name, but realizes he really hadn't thought the sentence out past that point.

"Sydney made her decision.  You are making yours.  We learn to accept the consequences."  For a moment, Vaughn can see something else behind the dark eyes, something desolate, clawing, reckless.  But Jack blinks, and the look has gone.  His face is unreadable again.

Vaughn licks his lips, presses them together, and looks at the floor.  He should have something to say.  He knows he should.

"We are prepared to arrange an extended leave.  You could be gone for up to six months, and return to either active or desk duty."

"No.  I don't want to come back to this life.  I don't want any part of it."

"Very well.  You're under contract for a month's notice.  I will arrange desk duty for the remainder of that time."

"Thank you, Sir."

"It's Jack."

And with a curt nod, he is dismissed.

*******

_april_

Perhaps she can go back to Santa Barbara.  She will sit alone on the beach and let the wet sand mold to the shape of her body, and when she is secure waiting there she will close her eyes; perhaps she can find him there.  

_I love, you Sydney.  You know that, right? You know. _

_No._  No, she will not think of it.  She must not.  She will not pry past the dark spots in her memory, tearing back the scabs again.  She will not dream of what might have been and what never was.  She will not go.  She did not go.  She will never be in Santa Barbara.  

In these moments, she feels like a rubber band stretched too far, and she knows one day she will snap.  The fear hovers just behind her as she goes through her day, tinting her memories and pushing her forward on every mission.  At night, when the memories come, when she struggles to sift the pieces of what is and what was and what never will be, she wonders if that day has already come.  She wonders if she snapped long ago, and now just hovers between the fragments.  But that can't be true, she tells herself -- surely on the other side of sanity there must be some pleasant unreality, some place where the pain dies.  Why else would anyone ever let sanity go, if there was nothing brighter on the other side?

She tells herself this, slightly reassured, and between the buried fragments of memories she finds her way toward sleep.

*******

_may_

Today she almost gives it up, almost gambles her whole life away just to pretend the last year never happened.  She wakes up in another seedy motel (Florida, this time) and stares at the sun-bleached painting of seashells for two minutes before she remembers where she is. Her head throbs and her side aches and her stomach churns.  She sees the collection of cellophane wrappers on the dresser, remembering the dinner provided by a nearby vending machine.  

She could give it all up.  She could.  She still has the ID and credit card she used in Marseilles; she could rent a car, something dark green and sporty, but still with enough room, and she could drive.  She would stop at the first gas station and buy three maps (a small laminated, a regular foldout, and a large national) and a jumbo cup of black coffee and some cellophane-wrapped muffins (blueberry, or banana nut) and the largest bag of pretzels.  She could trace a route, follow it cross-country and if she gets a sunroof she can have the wind in her hair.  She will drive through the days and late into the night; stop at a motel in Texarkana and another in Flagstaff; sleeping just for four hours before she drives again.

She will be hungry and exhausted and have grit in her hair, but she will pull into LA traffic (something she never knew she would miss) and drive right up to Ops Center.  She park by the front door, right in the yellow-striped no-parking zone that threatens to get you towed.  She will stride past security (they know her face) and onto the floor, and she will see him.  He will be sitting at his desk or talking to Weiss or listening to Marshall, one hand tapping his pen against the desk impatiently.  She will walk up behind him and place her hands on his shoulders and whisper in his ear.  And he will whirl around without giving her a chance to think, or explain, or even breathe, and his lips will be on hers and she will laugh and kiss him and try to breathe all at once, and he will wrap his arms around her and whisper into her ear.

_IloveyouSydneyIloveyouYouknowthatrightIloveyouDon'tgodon'tgodon'teverleaveagain_

And she will be home.  

The thought is too perfect, and before she has time to think herself out of it she kicks off the flimsy peach-toned comforter and peels off her clothes on the way to the shower and dresses and brushes and packs and checks out at the front desk while her hair is still wet.  

She stands on a streetcorner with the early-morning crowd; overdressed old men and bleary-eyed surfers and other early-birds who want to get to the beach before the crowds.  She steps off the corner as soon as the light turns, half-jogging across the street.  She hears, rather than sees, the screeching tires and the blasting horn and the crunching metal and shattering glass.  

She doesn't remember how she got back to the sidewalk, or how the small crowd grew so large, but she's aware of the blood matting her hair and the tangled mess that was a Ford Focus in front of her, crushed against what was a Toyota truck.  He (she?) must have skidded or spun, landing in the next lane, landing in the grill of a truck.  She stands unsteadily -- she must help.  She must do something.  She takes a step toward the twisted wreck and an elderly man stops her, hand on her arm, eyes full of concern.  When she looks down at him, she registers the sound of sirens.  

Mumbling an excuse, she's turning the other way, looking for a sidestreet or an alley (her natural habitat), anyplace away from eyes and the pounding sunlight.  

Two hours later, she's in another cheap motel, sitting on another peach-colored comforter, staring at her reflection in the glass over a tacky sun-bleached painting.  The butterfly bandages at her hairline are the only reminders of her close call.  That and her shaking hands.  This, she knows, this is why she cannot go home.  She brings pain. She brings death.  She closes her eyes and draws up her knees as she lets the images come; peeling back the dark places in her memory and reopening the wounds.  The images begin, without order or reason or end, like a slideshow in hell.  Danny in his bathtub.  Will in hers.  Francie -- it wasn't Francie.  Vaughn in the hospital.  Vaughn in France.  Her father strapped to innumerable gurneys.  Her mother grasping at her arm, trying to stop the blood.  Herself, bent over Emily's body.  Diane.  

The room is dark when she opens her eyes again, not sure how long she has been there or how she ended up lying down.  Her hand shakes as she pushes herself up off the bed.  


	6. 2004, summer

*******

_Summer_

_june_

A man in Mexico City looks like him.  The illusion isn't good, but it isn't bad, either, and in the flashing white-blue lights of the club his silhouette is enough to choke her breath and stop her heart, and that silhouette is almost deadly.  She lingers a moment longer than she knows she should, perched on a barstool, one hand tracing the rim of her glass in the spot where she licked off the salt.  The hand slips, one finger dipping into her drink.  She will not do this.  She must not do this.  But she sits, frozen, eyes locked on the silhouette in the far corner, waiting for the right combination of lights and smoke and shadow, waiting for another glimpse and the surprise that chokes her breath.  The sight is absorbing, so much so that she does not hear the thudding of boots on the concrete floor until they are too close, until a hand, heavy and hairy and greasy, rests on her arm.  

"Hola, Bonita."  The voice is simultaneously whispery and gruff; the grimy fingers curl around the exposed strap of her bra.  She puts on her best seductive smile, turning toward him, the motion sliding her short skirt further up her thigh.  His eyes flick down to look at it, and the flick is just enough.  She grabs the grimy wrist, twisting it back at the same time she jerks her knee up.  A choked moan tells her she hit her target.  He staggers a step back, off-balance, hands instinctively cupping against the pain.  She could raise a heel, use a jab, finish it off, but she doesn't need a scene.  She calls him a bastard and huffs in annoyance and walks quickly away, tossing her hair (long and blonde this time) as she tugs her skirt back down.  

Eyes follow her, more than usual, and she covers the anger and exasperation on her face.  Once out the doors, she rounds the corner into the nearest alley and breaks into a run.  Her contact will not meet her tonight; she must find the warehouse on her own.  

She cannot be slow.  She cannot be stupid.  She cannot be seen.  

********

_july_

_Irina_

She would make a good Lady MacBeth.

She knows this -- she has always known it.  A little red in her hair, an absent look in her eyes, she could walk around the tiny room rubbing the grainy, mud-colored lye soap over her hands until they were red and raw and felt, somehow, clean.  

The role suits her.  Betrayal is something she's become accustomed to; she wonders now if she would even remember how to build a relationship without one careful eye on the weak spots, the pressure points.  

She, too, sits on the too-thin comforter of a cheap motel.  She keeps a small gun beside her (always in arm's reach) and a larger one in the boxy silver camera-case sitting in the tiny alcove that serves as a closet.  Above it (on hangers bolted to the rod) are three suits: navy, black, tan, and a dress of shimmery red silk with a slim cut and a halter-neck, designed to help her stand out rather than blend in; to get what she wants rather than the half-truths everyone seems bent on telling her.  

She wanders over to the lone window, clear gel hand sanitizer still clutched in her fist, and presses one eye to the hideous geometric-print curtains.  The tiny slit is just enough for her to observe the dusty parking lot and the ramshackle All-Dollar next door.  She watches for several minutes, but the faded pickups and aging imports seem to all be in place, here and there a tired guest dragging bags out of their trunk, t-shirts sticking to their bodies in the heat.  

She likes these places best, somehow.  Something about the anonymous simplicity of being surrounded by people with grating, boring lives.  She does not fit in here, but she did, once, in a dusty Russian town where nobody did ever did anything and no one expected much.  She doesn't fit in here anymore, but she fakes it well.  

She pulls herself away from the window and crosses to the narrow dresser, top still sticky with someone else's spilled drink, remembering to set the sanitizer down, its alcohol in it still cool and damp on her palms.  

The narrow slit of sunlight slowly crosses the room, running up the wall and partway onto the ceiling before it finally disappears, the tiny room growing dark.  She sits on the floor, meditating, but the room distracts her.  She thinks she can see it, the erratic flash of ghostly green neon, the tiny, aging import that smelled of corn syrup and nicotine and blood.  She remembers the cold air that rushed through her when she closed the door, how pale and how tiny her daughter looked, curled into the fetal position in the back floorboard.  She's tucked a thin stack of twenties in the backseat (the best a mother could do) and a bottle of aspirin in the glove box.  She'd wanted to leave prescription painkillers, but Sydney would have been too skeptical to take them, however bad the pain might be.  She'd wanted to get a room across the street, to hide, to watch, but she knew better than to stay in that area for a moment longer.  Her best chance -- her daughter's best chance -- was to hide, to run, to put as much distance between them as possible and hope that the majority of Sloane's vengeance, and thereby his search, would focus on her.  He was livid, of course.  But she's long past fearing a man like him.  Planning for, running from, certainly.  Fearing, no.  In some way her worst fears have already come true -- when she sleeps at night she dreams of thick blood-drops denting the white sand, of a girl, her girl, staggering cut and hunched-over into the orange-tiled lobby, grasping an old key in trembling hands, and finally collapsing onto a flimsy mattress, all alone.  

The last feeling, at least, is one she's familiar with.

*******

_august_

She taps the cardboard ticket against her hand, and her heel against the tile.   Black suit, black heels, white shirt and a strand of (fake) pearls.  Hair, dark now, in a neat twist at the base of her neck.  She rests one hand on the black roll-a-long and taps it with her (fake, and French manicured) nails.  Electronic check-in would be so much simpler, but she's never been able to stomach it, with all the screens and the tapping that must leave fingerprints.  An irrational fear, she knows, but a fear all the same.  This has been her third trip to Mexico City in as many months, her third attempt to find contacts who will not know her by sight or reputation, her third fruitless search for a fabled warehouse.  


	7. 2004, fall

*******

_Fall      _

_september_

She jerks rigid and one leg kicks out straight, tossing away the thin dust-smelling comforter in the process.  She blinks, eyes coming to focus on the white ceiling, slowing her breath, chest rising and falling quickly.  A bead of sweat traces down her forehead and catches on her eyebrow; she draws one hand up and through her damp hair, mixing the perspiration with the strangely textured strands, thick and rough with dye.

She closes her eyes, then snaps them back open, not wanting to slide back into whatever reality she just awoke from.  She goes down the mental list, her private version of twenty questions.  She plays it most nights; perhaps more nights than she can remember.

_Where am I?_

Moscow.  No, that was last week.  Ankara.  Yes, that's it.

_When did I arrive?_

Late last night; just over 24 hours.

_Where am I staying?_

Cheap hotel.  (ha.)  Edge of the city, empty enough to be alone and crowded enough to hide.

_Security measures?_

Gun between mattress and headboard.  Key beneath pillow.  Trip wire just inside the door.

The questions go on, and her breathing relaxes.  The perspiration dries on her chest and behind her knees.  She has grounded herself in this reality, the only one she's willing to accept.  After long minutes, her eyes slide closed, and the voices begin again.  

Her mother, desperate, pleading, as she's never heard her before.  (Never heard her in real life?) Sloane, his voice calm and his conversation intelligent, but his words…insane.  The suspicion begins in her stomach and grows, the fear.  He is crazy.  

She can feel his breath as he bends down, close to her.  She can feel his hands -- she squirms and fights, and his hands have not gone away.  Then she feels it, the stab, the pain, the white-hot flash that burns her torso from the inside, the same pain she feels so often.  

The world goes quiet, and she thinks that this, here, is the end.  She squints her eyes and grits her teeth and prepares for the long slide into blackness.  

Then she hears her mother's voice again, cool, calm, resolved.  She feels hands, but different hands.  Cool, soothing.  A prick in her arm.  The pain stops -- not ended, but attenuated, its progress slowing just as she was about to escape.  Words -- words she concentrates on, strains to hear, words she cannot remember, in her mother's voice.  

_Why can't I hear them?_  She struggles, straining, and pulls her body up, closer, straining to hear.  The pain starts, radiating from her inside in a blinding flash, pain enough to kill.  

She falls back onto the flimsy mattress, and she jerks awake.

******

_october_

_Dixon_

He keeps a picture on his desk from that last night.  He is smiling (does he remember that sensation?) with his arms wrapped around Diane; she is not looking at the camera but up at him, smiling back.  That look used to haunt him, that glint in dark eyes, but now something else haunts him too.  In one side of the picture there's a shoulder, just a part of an arm, one person standing just to the left of camera range.  He knows if he could see the rest of that shot, what it would look like: Sydney standing beside them, smile stretching bright and wide across her face, dimples denting her cheeks.  Agent Vaughn would be beside her, in a pose mimicking theirs: his arms around her, his cheek resting on her hair, smiling at the camera.  

Back when they still had a future.  

He picks the frame up off his desk, still holding it in his hands, his eyes sliding shut with his tired sigh.  It does not matter -- his hands run over the rough silver filigree of the frame (a father's day gift from his daughter) and he can read it like braille.  The picture always remains on his desk, in arms reach, where he keeps his ghosts.  

His other hand closes around the top drawer of his desk, where he keeps his prescription.  His doctor gave him (now legal) xanax, one every four hours, to dull…something.  At this point, it doesn't matter any more.  But he only gets one every four hours.  His fingers slip off the cool steel handle, one by one, and he turns back to the desk.  The figures on the computer have not changed; they still form some sort of mismatched jigsaw puzzle.  A political coup in Zimbabwe.  An assassination at a secret summit in Turkey.  Accounts and vaults raided from the VSR.  All without apparent leaks, all without any hint how or where security was breached.  All tied to Sloane.  

He sets the picture frame back on his desk, and begins reading the reports again, hoping for a leak or a breach or a common denominator, anything to tell him how this was accomplished; anything to give him hope that it will end.  

His head begins pounding and the familiar tight sensation clutches at his heart.  He sits back, sighs, and begins the long, slow process of counting to four. 

******

_november_

She sits over what should be a Thanksgiving feast, pushing microwaved bits of turkey around in a cheap black plastic plate with a matching cheap black plastic fork.  She eats only a little and dumps the rest in the trash, unable to bring herself to swallow the sticky bits of what claims to be cinnamon apple.  She knows the sweet syrup would only adhere to the lump in her throat.  

Later, she satisfies herself with a hot shower (the first truly warm one since she returned from Moscow) accompanied by a cheap set of peach-scented bath products she found on clearance at the drugstore.  She wraps the small (white, this time) motel towel around herself and sits on the flimsy mattress, scraping a rough razor across her legs.  One hand reaches for the tiny tin of peach-scented powder to clog the countless knicks.  She dusts herself lavishly, messily, not caring about the tiny blood streaks on the powerderpuff or the DNA she's leaving behind.  Eighteen months of too careful, too careful, will teach you some things aren't worth being careful about. 

Her stomach growls as she crawls into bed, but she ignores it, focusing instead on the peach-scented lotion still moist on her skin.  When that fails, she focuses on her plan, her mission, anything to push back the memories that hover at the edges of her dreams.  She knows she can do it; she can destroy, but not like he did -- not with bruising flesh and crunching bones and dripping blood.  She can destroy with guns and explosives and fire (the weapons she knows so well) she can strip everything away and leave him with only that empty hollow where the dream lived, a sound like footfalls in an empty room; like the shutting of her mother's door after she was gone.  This will be her legacy; this will be what she leaves him with.  Then he, like, her will know what it means to be empty.


	8. 2004, 2005, winter

******__

_Winter_

_december_

She almost forgets the holidays this year, not remembering until nightfall that it is Christmas Eve.  She buys no glossy cards, no expensive ice cream.  She wonders if this makes her less sane, less human, and quickly decides she doesn't want to think too hard about that.  She's back in Mexico City again, full of its gaudy colors and blazing lights.  Hard to forget the holiday, in a place like this.  

She leaves the motel after nightfall, when the streets are full of people, in taxis and on bicycles and whole families on foot, all heading toward the cathedrals for midnight mass.  She follows them, getting caught up in the crowds, allowing them to pull her along.  

She sits in the back of the church, stuffed between an elderly woman wrapped in an enormous orange scarf and a squirming five-year-old in his first suit.  When the congregation kneels to pray, all she can think of are the charred bodies on the floor, the ashes someone had to wash away.  (Will it always be like this?)

She bends her knees and her head with them, not repeating the words but letting her own words run through her head, the same words that run through her head every night as she tries to sleep.

_I love you.  IloveyouvaughnIloveyouitsyouIloveyou._

She remains in the pew long after the others leave, hands folded, head bowed, pretending to pray.  They leave her in silence, trailing out in couples and families and large groups, voices rising as they reach the street.  She waits until they are gone, then slips her hands beneath the pew, running them back and forth across the bottom of the seat.  They encounter more chewing gum than she cares to think about.  She feels it -- the touch of cool, rough metal, contrasting with the polished wood.  She curls her fingers and digs in her nails, face scrunching as the splinters drive into her fingertips.  The tendons on her arm pull taut, and after long moments of nothing, the metal begins to move.  

She suppresses a grunt as she finally pulls it loose, discreetly glancing to one side and the other, ensuring no stragglers or altar boys are standing nearby.  She cups the metal in her hand, pulling it from beneath the shadow of the pew.  The knife has a silver grip, engraved with flowing script, and its sheath bears the eerily familiar mark of an eye.

******

_2005_

_january_

She watches the New Year from a Paris balcony, for the first time springing for an expensive place.  Not that she has a choice.  She runs her hand over the bills in her pocket, wondering how much longer this can go on.  It would be poetic, wouldn't it: Sydney Bristow, the great international spy, dying of starvation in a Paris alley.  

She's dipped into the Swiss account three times, and there's only enough to do so once more.  More frightening than the money is the risk of discovery, even though the account's been moved each time.  She will have to find concrete information soon, even if it means risking exposure.

She sighs, running her hands through her hair, forgetting about money and discovery for the night.  She has a bottle of champagne, and a dusty plastic flute, and she's going to make the most of both of them.  

The fireworks display isn't nearly as impressive as it was at the millennium, with the Eiffel tower full of beautiful fire, when she watched it from LA, on the couch in their apartment with Danny's arms wrapped around her.  She had the day off (the whole day) and bought a new dress for the party that night.  He bought champagne (two bottles) and they cracked one open even though it was only three in the afternoon.  They watched the Paris display on tv and toasted and kissed for the New Year with every passing hour, and they never made it to Charlie's party that night.  

She tosses the flute away, disgusted, and turns her back on the paltry display.  She walks back inside, bottle gripped in her hand, and shuts the doors against the sounds of lovers in the streets.

******

_february_

_Jack_

Another dark-suited minion drops it on his desk, another plain manila folder, just like all the others.  He opens it, and his fingers slip off the edge; he cannot fathom why someone would send this report now, since -- well, since everything.  

Yet another cruelty of the immaculate government system -- in a stuffy office somewhere, hunched over a cheap government-issue desk, an underpaid researcher has been slaving away on this, someone who missed the memo to stop, just a mindless cog in the bureaucratic wheel.

For the report before him is on a woman -- his daughter -- and the 15th-century drawing of her face.  He would credit Kendall with passing this on, but he has known him to be callous, never cruel.  

As he stares at her face, the images flash back -- beginning the way all his nightmares do, with an innocent blue folder.  He slides the photographs aside; he's seen enough of them -- the ones scattered across his coffee table, convenient coasters for the bottle of Jim Beam that always seems to find its way there.  

He focuses his clouded vision, blinking too hard in the pale fluorescent lights, and tries to read the words.  The words, yes -- but they mean nothing to him.  Someone has found a different meaning to the infamous prophecy, it seems -- a cryptic remark no one thought to follow up on.  He turns another page, reads a report of a monastery in Assissi, at the base of Mount Subasio.  Rambaldi left a drawing there, containing an encoded poem referring to the beauty of the sky.  

The cog-like bureaucrat has followed the report with hurried notes, some even scribbled by hand, excited speculations on the possibilities this poem might contain.  Someone was quite proud of himself (herself?) for cracking this little code.  

Someone was too late.  

For the file holds another report, the intel of a team dispatched to Italy just last week.  The sketch had been stolen sometime last winter, no one knew quite when.  This search, like all the others, proves to be nothing but fruitless waste.  

He crumples the final page in his hand, not caring what it contains.  A throb runs through the (already) aching vessels in his head.  Why would they keep on studying the prophecy, when they already know Sydney's fate?  What kind of heartless place would do this, search this way?  

What kind of person simply trudges on, knowing the object of his search is dead?


	9. 2005, spring

******

_march_

She flips her hair over her shoulder, the wet sticky strands cool against her shoulder, dampening her flimsy pajama top.  Black, this time.  She reaches for the wide paddle brush on the bed beside her, looking at the broken-off hairs running through it, brown and red and chestnut and black.  She squeezes her eyes shut and pulls it through her hair, pulling harder when it meets a tangle, welcoming the mild pain that tugs at her scalp.  

The illusion must be its best today.  Perfect.  

She matches the black hair to the black skirt (silk, and knee-length) and beaded black top (tasteful).  She slips on black heels (tall, with laces) and pulls her still-damp hair into a knot.  She works with it, strand by strand, wrapping and curling and twisting into an elaborate design atop her head.  Kohl for her eyes, and simple gloss on her lips.  Mascara, almost too much.  

The clothes are a size smaller than she used to wear, but she's rebounding from last year.  A part of her hates that, hates any notion she could learn to thrive in her new life (if she could choose to call it that).  But she puts these thoughts aside, smoothing her skirt and adjusting her top, careful to cover the scar snaking up her chest.  

She tries it in the mirror, the smile, the flirtatious laugh.  They feel strange on her lips, for a moment she thinks she's inheriting her father's stone face.  But she tosses her head and squares her shoulders and tries again, the expressions coming more naturally now.  She knows she could fake them, she could just think of him, but she will not.  She cannot lose focus tonight.

The air outside is cool and humid and holds a smell she can only describe as Madrid-in-early-spring.  She makes her way down the uneven sidewalk and arrives at the gates of the house, music and laughter and light spilling through.  She's ushered by a maid into the center courtyard, hung with lanterns and lights and already full of more people than it can hold.  A long table lines one side, full of tapas of every kind, and on the other side three men chop fruit and pop corks and make a large production of the sangria.  

She sees her target near the center fountain, surrounded by several businessmen and two women with large eyes and (fake) breasts.  She moves through the crowd quickly, unobtrusively, and by the time he looks up she's almost at his side.  

His lips part and his hands shake, the greatest look of shock she's ever seen from him.  She smiles, sidling up to him, one hand on his bare forearm and another against his back.  

"It's good to see you again, Senor."

He sucks in breath, eyes darting toward the exits as he searches for a reply.  She addresses herself to his companions.  

"May I borrow my colleague for a moment?"  The men step aside to give them a path; the bimbos glare.  She smiles and at the men, swishing her hips as they pass.  She does not speak to her companion until they are outside.  She takes him out the back entrance, into the narrow alley.  Only then does she transfer the knife at his back to his throat.

"I was informed you were dead," Sark says.

"You were informed wrong."

"What is it you want?"

"The location of Sloane's warehouse."

"You're sadly misinformed.  Mr. Sloane and I are no longer associates."

"Which is why you know the location."

"And you think I would give it up so easily?"  She sees him about to move, and drives the point of her heel into his foot.  

"I'm willing to resort to other means."  Her dark eyes glint; she knows the look in them is not the same as it used to be.

******

_april_

Traveling with a prisoner proved to be even harder than she expected.  He argued and cajoled and kept up his superior airs for nine days, until something snapped, perhaps it was her, perhaps it was his vision of her.  Either way, he talked, spilling out the directions in cryptic phrases, and she was creative in thinking of threats should the information prove false.

She assured him he was going with her to the warehouse; he would risk his own deception.  She worried, at nights, what she would do with him when she was done.  She was dead, and had to stay that way, and he would certainly make the most of that information.  

She was relieved of her worry on early on a Tuesday morning, when he thought he heard her crying out in a nightmare and went for the gun.  Too slow, and too late.  

She left him where he fell, slumped over the flimsy fake-wood chair, silver knife still glinting where it protruded from his chest.

******

_may_

This left her to risk the warehouse alone, with no assurance his intel meant anything.  She dresses in black pants and turtleneck (a rough approximation of BDUs) with heavy boots laced on her feet.  Her heart pounds and her hands shake, and she has to stop in an alley three blocks away to catch her breath.  She leans against the wall, the brick rough against her cheek and still warm from the scorching sun.  

She closes her eyes and pictures his face, smiling, the warm green eyes looking into hers.  The brick is suddenly cooler, damp against her cheek, and she pulls away, drawing her arm across her eyes.  

She is a dead woman, and this is not a life.  So what if the intel proves false?  There's nothing more they can do to her.  She draws her breath and begins moving, keeping low to the ground, rounding the corner.

She can see three guards, and one sniper across the street.  She goes for the sniper first.  She enters the building through the fire exit, moving silently up the stairs.  She reaches his door and peers through the narrow crack; he has not stirred.  He must be bored; glass soda bottles litter the floor, along with greasy food wrappers and what must be a week's supply of porn.  He has one magazine propped just below the window, and she doubts his eyes are on the warehouse.  She clenches her jaw.  She could have taken him out from the street.  

She brings up her gun with one hand and flings open the door with another.  He slumps over his rifle; never suspected a thing.  

She shoves him aside, his body falls off the plastic milk crate and onto the floor, pool of blood growing beneath him.  She kneels down to the rifle; it's a far better weapon than hers.  A couple adjustments and the first guard is in her sights, she squeezes the trigger twice.  His cry alerts the second guard, who begins running for cover and is much harder to target.  She needs three shots to bring him down.  

Sloane got his guards too cheap.  The third, guarding the rear alley, hears the shots and rounds the corner, gun drawn, never anticipating they might come from above.  He's the easiest one yet.  

She's out the door and back down the stairs, two at a time, not caring who hears.  She'll have a better chance of survival if she gets out of this building.  

Back on the street, she crouches behind a dumpster, ignoring the smell of greasy animal fat from within.  She watches the warehouse for ten minutes, fifteen, and nothing happens.  Crouching low, she crosses the street, gun drawn.  

Sloane should have hired better security.  She stops in front of the corrugated metal door, protected by a cheap combination lock.  _This isn't right._  She searches more closely, careful to touch nothing, and she sees it.  A tiny bubble of glass at the base of the concrete, an invisible trip line certain to be deadly.  She steps back, crouching low, and begins to walk around the perimeter of the building.  

She discovers the key at the first corner, a place attractive for anyone who might try to cut through the wall.  Another bubble, another glass eye.  This one different -- a tiny piece of transmitter, a wire too short to signal far.  She smiles; this might be exactly what she's looking for.  She continues her search around the perimeter, and in the rear alley she finds it.  A faint rectangle on the outer concrete, extending back under the building: the sign of a basement walled in.  

She pulls a small package from her belt and goes to work.  She spent most of her money on it, some if the finest explosive on the black market.  She places one small cube at each of the building's four corners (a few inches away from the trip lines), attaches the coordinating microchips, and runs.  She runs for five blocks before she slows down, crossing into a residential area, attracting attention from men on breaks and children on bikes and women hanging laundry out the windows.  She runs for almost a mile (that's the limit) then stops as quickly as she'd begun.  She reaches into the pocket on her belt, and presses the button.

The explosion forces everyone on the street to stop and look around, but it's not nearly as satisfying as what happens next -- four seconds after the initial blast, there's a second, one that shudders like an earthquake and makes the first detonation feel like a firecracker.  The noise is deafening and windows rattle, and amidst the cries and the screams and the rushing of people to get back indoors, Sydney smiles.  

Underground explosives -- so much like Sloane.  If he can't hold on to his possessions, he'd rather no one have them at all.  


	10. 2005, june, one

AN: 2 chapters to go.  And one whole deviation.  

******

_Summer _

_june_

Breathe in.  Breathe out.  She lets the tears fall in the pouring rain.  

Tsimshatsui.  Hong Kong.  She can make it there.

She closes her eyes and lets the rain wash over her, and she dreams of a night on a cold beach, the rain pouring over her, making her cotton shirt stick to her body.  She lifts her face to the sky, and she can almost feel his arms slide around her waist.

_I picked the wrong weekend for us to go to Santa Barbara._

She's been running faster lately, working harder, growing sloppier with her cover.  This is the reason why -- the dreams that have chased her for twenty-three months, the reality she refuses to acknowledge; they are becoming real.  The anticipation of tomorrow is too strong, burning her chest, intoxicating her like hard liquor.  Only one more day, and she will know -- she will know if she's found retribution, found success, found freedom.  Her hands shake even at the thought.  Hope is hard on a person who's forgotten how to believe.  

_I love you.  IloveyouVaughnIloveyouitsyouIloveyou._  She whispers the words every night dropping off to sleep, a cheap compulsion she doesn't care to break herself of.  Like an incantation, like the rain, with it she can wash away the past.

_But not our past.  We'll always have our past.  We just have to find a future._

*******

She travels through the night, ignoring the stabs of pain in her abdomen and chest, ignoring the hunger pangs radiating from her stomach.  She can make it there.  She just has to get to Hong Kong.  

She weaves through the dark alleys, gun drawn, eyes wary in the city's busy nightlife.  

Not wary enough.  

The muggers are waiting for her in an alley, hidden conveniently behind a dumpster.  One jumps at her, knocking her down, gun skittering across the asphalt.  She could take them easily, but not in a weakened state.  She manages an elbow jab and a sharp kick to the first one, rolling over with him beneath her, she uses her long legs to sweep the second off-balance before he can go for her gun.  A second jab to the face of the man beneath her, then a poorly placed kick that hits her second attacker in the arm.  She's no sooner on her feet then he wraps his arm around her neck, slamming her head against the corner of the dumpster.  She pulls her feet off the ground, forcing him to stumble with her weight, and with a violent elbow to the head he slumps to the ground.  She turns unsteadily, grabbing the gun, her abdomen, head, and heart pounding.  She manages to walk a block before she sinks to the ground.  

******

She wakes with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, and without a clue when she's seen this alley before.  Shielding her eyes from the gaudy neon, she finds her way to the nearest pay phone.  A terse exchange over the phone (when would Kendall be any other way?) and she begins crossing streets and reading landmarks, getting her bearings as she makes her way to the slightly less-seedy area of Tsimshatsui; it takes her just over two hours to find the safehouse.  

Once inside, she's led upstairs by an equally-terse guard, who places her in a room with a thin, dusty mattress, lit by a single naked bulb.  He mumbles something about "handler" and "explain" before shutting the door.  He seems eager to get away.

Her heart pounds even faster after he leaves, perhaps it's being alone in this odd place, perhaps it's the word "handler" working overtime on her brain.  She shakes her head and runs her hands through her (slightly alley-smelling) hair, deciding to make the best of her time.  Exploration of the darker corners of the room reveals a door to a tiny closet, stocked with t-shirts and jeans sure to be too short.  Another door reveals a tiny, but clean, bathroom, and she takes her time beneath the hot water.  

When she emerges, with still no summons, she pulls on an oversize t-shirt and settles on the thin mattress, slowly drifting to sleep.

She doesn't know how long she's been out when she jerks awake to a sharp knock at the door, hand instinctively reaching for a gun under the pillow.  Her terse companion sticks his head into the room.

"Your handler will see you now," he says, shutting the door again.  She jumps off the bed, heart pounding, and pulls on the closest (far too short) pair of jeans.  Feeling tired and sick and terribly underdressed, she almost runs down the narrow hall.  A door near the end is ajar, and she stops to still her hand before pushing it open.  

Her father is standing inside.  She wraps her arms around his neck without saying a thing, and she can feel his arms bend (a bit stiffly) around her back.  

"Dad, it's so good to see you."

It takes him a moment to reply.

"Are you okay?" he finally manages, in a quiet voice.

"I think so."  She steps back, taking in his eyes, his face.  He looks older than she remembered, more tired, and his hair is a lighter gray.  She blinks away the tears before they can fall down her cheeks, and she notices the way he draws his whole hand down his face, just once, before stepping away.

"You'll probably want to sit down.  We have a lot to cover."

The tone sends a warning shot straight down her spine -- it's too cold, even for him.

"Dad, what's wrong?"

"Sydney, we have a lot to cover."

"What are you talking about?  Dad, what's going on?"

"Why don't you sit down?"

"Dad?"

He steps back to her, hand on her shoulders, guiding her down into the stiff metal chair.  "Sydney, it's been two years--"

"I know."

"--and a lot has happened."

"_Dad, what are you trying to say?_"

He glances down at the floor, jaw clenching, and kneels to meet her at eye-level.

"There's no easy way to tell you this.  Michael Vaughn--"  he breaks off.

"Vaughn what?"

"Agent Vaughn died last year."


	11. 2005, june, two

******

She's been in the safehouse for three days now, sitting in the same stiff metal chair, pretending to sleep on the same dusty mattress, refusing the same overly spicy food. The circles under Jack's eyes are nearly as dark as those under her own, both of them trying to hammer out some picture of the last two years before she inevitably leaves the room, returning to the solace of the dusty mattress, unwilling to let him watch her cry. She is strong, she always has been; she can do this.  She will do this.  Even if she has lost her reason why.

What broke her, what really led her to believe she would snap, came on day two.  After twelve hours alone she returned to the room, Jack sitting behind the small desk as if he'd never left.  

"How did he die?" she demanded, without preamble.

"It was a car accident."

"Sloane?"

"No, we don't think so."

"A CIA agent dies in a car accident and you don't think it's suspicious?"

He ignores the barb.  "He left the CIA.  We found evidence -- heart tissue.  The DNA matched...we were assured there was no way you could have survived."

"But...it must have been faked...someone--"

"Someone was too good for our best technology.  There were no indications--" his voice grows quiet again, his eyes dart toward the corner.  He clenches his hands into fists, and unclenches them, sliding them down his knees, as if he's uncertain what to do with them.  He sits awkwardly on the corner of the metal chair.  "Agent Vaughn stayed on for six months, chasing down leads, but it was apparent his focus was gone.  He approached me, wanting to return to private life.  I--" here, his voice grows softer again.  "I thought it would be wise to let him go.  The last time I spoke with him, he had accepted a job with a defense contractor and relocated to Florida.  He lived there only a few weeks.  I was informed of the accident, made a preliminary investigation -- it appeared to be straightforward.  He was driving to work one morning when he swerved into oncoming traffic; he was trying to avoid a pedestrian in the crosswalk."

She left the room, without another word, and emptied the contents of her (empty) stomach in the tiny bathroom.  

She felt as if she were walking in a living nightmare, looking for someone to pinch her, some way, any way, to wake up.

But she never wakes up, she never truly sleeps, and the debriefing sessions continue.  

"There's no way Sloane still has that much control.  I destroyed his warehouse."

Jack looks up, an odd glint in his eyes.  

"So that was you?"

"Yes.  I located his facility in Mexico City and placed explosives to trigger the C-4 planted underground.  He hasn't changed tactics since SD-6."

"No, he hasn't.  But he has become far more powerful.  We think it's only a matter of time before he makes his move."

"But he can't --"

"He is.  Whatever damage may have been done in the explosion, he still maintains enough power to continue his efforts."

"But I destroyed all the Rambaldi artifacts."

"Not all -- we know from a courier that he had the DiRegno heart shipped out of Mexico.  We don't know what else he may have hidden."

She feels the urge to be sick again, even with her empty stomach.  Two years, all her searching, all her work -- for nothing?  Did she truly sacrifice so much for this?  She makes her way to the tiny kitchen, forcing down bland soup and black coffee before she returns.  

"It's imperative that your presence remain a secret.  Sloane believes the Rambaldi prophecy was about you, and he will never stop searching for you if he knows you're alive."

"That's ridiculous -- I can't be.  I've been to Mount Subasio."

"We've received more intel about Mount Subasio…"

He finishes the story.  She pushes the metal chair back without explanation, slamming the door behind her as she goes.  When your life can't possibly get any worse, that's when it gets worse.  She should be used to that by now.

She steps into the tiny bathroom, peeling off her clothes.  She reaches over to turn on the shower, hoping the scalding water will wash off -- something.  Perhaps it will soothe her red eyes.  She stops at the tiny mirror out of old habit.  She looks at the line on her neck (gone by now) and the spot where one used to be on her forehead.  No more lines on her arms, besides a shallow scratch inflicted by one of the muggers.  And last, she looks at her chest.  The deep wound below her ribs, the one she's never been able to place, and the mysterious line running much of the length of her sternum.  A sudden cold thought grips her, a chill running the length of her spine.  No. No, no, _no.  _She grips the edges of the tiny porcelain sink, remembering her dreams.

_"Sloane believes the Rambaldi prophecy was about you, and he will never stop searching for you if he knows you're alive."_

_"We were able to trace it to a monastery at the base of Mount Subasio, in Assisi."_

_She touches the flame to one corner, then another.  The whole page turns to flame, blazes up, and is gone.  She strips, shaking out her sweater, her bra, her pants, determined to rid them of the last traces of the crumbling paper.  She watches the last specks of black dust wash away down the drain.   _

_Sloane, his voice calm and his conversation intelligent, but his words…insane.  The suspicion begins in her stomach and grows, the fear.  He is crazy.  _

_She feels it, the stab, the pain, the white-hot flash that burns her torso from the inside._

_She pulled out the stitches in Berlin.  She remembers the burning, the way the edges of the dark, rough thread stuck like barbed wire as she pulled them through the newly healed skin._

_"We know from a courier that he had the DiRegno heart shipped out of Mexico."_

_"We found evidence -- heart tissue.  The DNA matched yours."_

Hands shaking, she steps out of the bathroom and into the humid air of the tiny room.  She doesn't bother to turn the shower off.  She feels like a pawn, a robot, arms and legs moving mechanically though some preordained dance.  She can see nothing but the images in her dreams; hear nothing but the prophecy running through her head.

She crosses the tiny room, kneeling before the clothes she was wearing when she arrived at the safehouse.  She pulls the white turtleneck over her head and reaches for the gun hidden in her folded pants.  She pauses, her hand sliding up beneath her sweater, pressing it against the scar, centimeters from her heart._  Not my heart.  Not a heart at all.  _

She closes her eyes, whispering a prayer, begging forgiveness, from her father, from Vaughn.  She slides the gun into her waistband.

She uses her fingers to pry the tiny window open, pushing hard against the years of dust and corrosion.  She finally gets it halfway, just enough to slither through, one leg, then torso, then her other leg.  Hanging from the narrow sill, she hovers just four feet from the ground.  She drops, swinging to one side, bracing herself for the pain that shoots through her ankles.  She crouches for a moment, one hand on the ground, letting her joints recover.  Then she begins moving, quickly, darting into shadows and out of alleys, keeping out of the omnipresent electricity and the surreal glow of every-color neon lights.  

She needs only an hour to retrace her steps, winding back to the alley.  She pauses when she reaches it, eyes adjusting to the flickering light, nose adjusting to the sickly sweet smell of dumpster.  She does not jump when she hears a voice.

"Hello, Sydney."

He steps from the shadows, dressed as always in a pressed suit, complete with tie, the rotting newspapers and bottlecaps crunching beneath his polished shoes.  

That look is back on his face -- that smile.  That insane smile.

She draws her arms behind her in a flash, whipping the gun out from her waistband.  "Don't move."

He doesn't even pause, still walking toward her with slow, measured steps.  "I've missed you these last two years."

Her eyes narrow.  "Sloane, don't move."

"You did well with my guards in Mexico.  I will confess; I was a bit disappointed.  I had intended that they present you with more of a challenge."

She cocks the gun.  "I mean it."

He stops, inches away.  The gun barrel brushes against the gray wool of his lapel.  One hand flicks out, a silver knife sliding from beneath his sleeve.  He presses the silver blade to her side.  

"I never thought you would accomplish everything so quickly -- but I should have known.  I have such great plans for you; so much I can offer now.  The time is finally ripe, Sydney."

Her eyes flick down to the knife at her side.  With a start, she realizes she recognizes it -- the carved silver handle, bearing the symbol of an eye.

"Where did you get that?"

"You should be more careful what you leave behind."  His other hand reaches out, slowly, two of his fingers tracing down her cheek.   "I always believed you were my greatest accomplishment.  And look at you now."  A crooked smile, as his fingers continue to trace, over her chin, down her neck, coming to rest between her breasts.  They press against the raised flesh of her scar.

She tightens her grip on the trigger.  His knife slices through her sweater, the cool metal now resting against her skin.

"You understand now, don't you?  All that time, all that planning -- you didn't really think I would let you destroy everything I owned?  The most important Rambaldi work of all -- it's a part of you, Sydney.  It _is _you.  Sydney, do you realize your place in the prophecy?

_This woman here depicted will possess unseen marks_.

"Sloane, I don't care what you threaten.  I will kill you."

"You haven't answered my question, Sydney."

_Signs that she will be the one to bring forth my works_.

"I think I have."  She pivots around him in an instant, swinging toward her weak side, a move he wouldn't expect.  

_Bind them with fury..._

The knife slices into her side; she grits her teeth against the pain and releases her right hand, wrapping her right arm around his neck.  She brings her left hand up, holding the gun to his temple.  She can feel the blood flowing from her side, sticky and thick as it seeps through her sweater.  

_...a burning anger..._

She brings the gun lower, mimicking his motions, tracing over his chin, past his neck, down his sternum, pressing it against his heart.  

_...unless prevented..._

He tightens his grip on the knife, sliding it further into her side.

_…at vulgar cost..._

"You don't want to do that, Sydney.  That bullet will pass straight through both our hearts."

_... this woman will render the greatest power unto utter desolation_.

She pulls the trigger.

_******_


	12. Epilogue

******

_Epilogue (deviation three_)

The world comes together slowly, sensations first, then smells, then sounds.  The deep burning in her chest seems strong enough to tear her apart; it radiates from her right side.  She can feel it throb in time to her heart; and she realizes the warm wetness on her right hand is throbbing too, in time with the pain.  Her head aches, and her eyelids seem so hard to open.  

She can smell something odd -- blood, perhaps?  Gunpowder.  And...something else.  Something from a distant memory, the kind she would have difficulty placing even without the blackness in her head.  Cinnamon?  Vanilla?  Something oddly comforting.

And she hears.  The creak of a door.  A muffled voice -- cursing.  Sounds -- doors flinging open, glass crunching, thudding feet.  And her name -- she recognizes her name.

"Sydney?  Sydney?  Where are you?  Sydney?"

Another door.  A sound -- guttural, shocked.  Cursing.  And lower, harsher, an order.  "This is Agent Vaughn.  We need an ambulance to Agent Bristow's house right now.  We have an agent down."  The voice stops, and the footsteps pound again, louder this time.  

Then, much closer, a door opens, and the footsteps stop.  "Oh, ----" the voice breathes.  Running, and a thud of knees hitting the floor, just beside her.  A warm hand peels back her own, foreign fingers dabbling in the blood flowing from her side.  At the same time, another hand tangles in her hair, smoothing it, running softly across her forehead.

"Sydney?  Sydney, wake up."

And she does.  Slowly, with great effort, she drags open her eyes and blinks, twice.  He is there, head bent almost to hers, forehead creased with fear, green eyes watering, so close to her own.  

"Sydney, it's okay.  I've called help.  You're going to be fine, I promise."  One hand pulls away from her side, fumbling in his pocket for a cell phone, dialing with his thumb, not caring that he is smearing blood all over the numbers.  "Yes, this is Agent Vaughn.  We need two units -- we have two agents down."

"Will," she breathes out, in confusion.

"They're on the way; they'll bring help for Will, too." 

He drops the phone to the floor, not bothering to disconnect.  His hand returns to her side, and the other continues, running warm fingers over her forehead.  "Syd, you're gonna be okay.  You are, you understand?"

She tries to nod, but the motion brings back the throbbing in her head.  She squeezes her eyes shut, and he slaps her cheeks.  

"Stay awake, Syd.  You'll get to sleep soon, I promise.  Just stay awake until the paramedics get here."

She does, fighting for interminable moments to keep her word.  After an eternity, wailing starts at the edge of her consciousness, and grows unbearably loud, followed by red and blue flashing spastically across her room.  Two men wearing dark blue appear in the doorway, and she lets her eyes slide shut.  She has kept her promise.

The ache is still with her the next time she opens her eyes, albeit in far more comfortable surroundings.  The sensations are still the same -- the deep throb at her side, the fogginess, the warm hand holding hers, the fingers tangling through her hair.  She pulls her eyes open, and blinks twice.  

"Hey," he says, smiling a smile that reaches all the way to his green eyes.  She tries to smile back, but isn't sure if she succeeded.  Her forehead creases in confusion, and she breathes out a word.

"Will?"

"He's fine.  He might need a little more rehab than you, but he's fine.  I'll take you to visit him as soon as you're able to get up."

She tries to smile again, and this time knows she succeeded.  A sudden thought grips her, a fear.  With Herculean effort, she lifts her right hand, dragging his left one with it.  She pulls it up just enough to bring it into view, and sees that it is empty, bearing nothing but a watch around his wrist.  She lowers both their hands and smiles.  

His forehead creases in confusion.  "What is it?"

She moves her head, just a bit, the motion substituting for a shake.  She smiles.  "Nothing."  She's not certain herself why she did it -- a fear, a shadow, like a memory from a dream.  

He smiles back, a warm, genuine expression.  "Okay."

She can feel sleep pulling at her again, the sense of relief and the effort of moving were far too much.  Blackness creeps in at the edges of her vision, the fuzziness in her head growing stronger.  But she manages one last surge of energy, forcing her eyes wide and her mouth to move.  

"Vaughn?"

"You know, you can call me Michael."  The teasing tone is back, but she does not have time for that.  

"Vaughn?"

"What?"

"Can we -- go -- to Santa Barbara?"   

He raises her hand to his lips, kissing her fingertips.  "As soon as you're out.  I promise."  

She gives him a broad smile, lips parting.  The air rushes from her lungs in some imitation of a sigh.  This was important, though she couldn't articulate the reason.  She's relaxed enough now to let go, her eyelids sliding shut.  She can hear his voice, his breathing, and the words he whispers.

"I love you, Sydney.  You know that, right?  You _know_ that." 

And she does know -- she knows she has found the things she needed: Retribution.  Success.  Freedom.  The certainty, the relief, floods through her, even though her sleep-starved mind cannot fathom the reason why.  But she knows these things -- and she knows something more.  Something greater.  

She is loved.  Truly, deeply loved.  She knew it mattered, but only now realizes how much.  With that knowledge, she welcomes the coming sleep, welcomes the coming days.  She focuses what remains of her attention on his whispers; they continue without pausing.  His voice follows her as she drifts off to peaceful dreams.


End file.
